About the High Line

The High Line is a new public park, built on an elevated 1930s rail structure located on Manhattan's West Side. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street. The first section of the High Line opened to the public in June 2009. The High Line is property of the City of New York, and is maintained and operated by the non-profit Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

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Next weekend offers a rare opportunity to see Joel Sternfeld’s Photographs of the High Line as part of Luhring Augustine‘s booth at the ADAA Art Show 2009 at the Park Avenue Armory.

Back in 2000, in the dawning hours of Friends of the High Line, co-founders Robert Hammond and Joshua David asked noted photographer Joel Sternfeld to walk the High Line to take photographs. The pictures Joel took in the subsequent seasons chronicled the allure and natural grace of the High Line, and played a crucial role in alerting the public to the potential of what many saw from below as abandoned ruins. Adam Gopnik wrote about Joel in the May 21st, 2001 issue of the New Yorker:

[A mound of subsoil has been deposited in the future planting bed, and spread under the re-installed railroad tracks. Click all photos to enlarge.]

In preparation for the arrival of plants later this fall, a layer of subsoil has just been delivered to the High Line above 19th Street. This soil, part of the High Line’s layered Living Roof system, will serve as a base for the topsoil in which plants will eventually grow. Subsoil is coarser and typically contains more clay than the finer, more nutrient-rich topsoil.

Once both layers of soil are in place in the planting beds, they will be covered over to keep them from blowing away before plants are ready.

[Click to enlarge]

Summer is just around the corner, or so this 80-degree day would have us believe. Above, sunset at the rail yards, last summer. It’s hard to beat that golden light filtering through the smog over New Jersey.